Len Bias, Winner-turned-loser

June 29, 1986|By Clarence Page.

Len Bias was a loser.

He was a winner for a while, a big winner.

But he turned out to be a loser.

He was a winner at the University of Maryland, a 6-foot, 8-inch, 210-pound all-American slam dunk artist with a leased car and little need to show up for classes. Everyone seemed to know Lenny the basketball star was playing for something more urgent than grades.

Last winter, Regardies, a slick Washington-based business monthly, decided just for fun to calculate how much revenue a basketball superstar is worth to a college. They chose Patrick Ewing at Georgetown University. To those of us who are not all that familiar with the entertainment industry that calls itself college sports, the results were astounding.

Figuring in such factors as extra game attendance during Ewing`s years, extra television revenue, extra NCAA playoff revenue, additional attendance attributable to Georgetown`s 1982 NCAA championship and additional alumni fund-raising revenue, Regardies concluded Georgetown pulled in an extra $14.4 million, thanks to Ewing`s talents. And all the university had to chip in, Regardies figured, was $48,600 for a four-year scholarship.

But Ewing got his reward, thanks to the New York Knicks. The Knicks signed him to a contract reported to be worth $14 million over six years.

This was the brass ring to which Bias aspired. He almost made it. He was first draft pick of the Boston Celtics and second pick overall in the National Basketball Association draft.

``I schemed for three years to get that kid,`` Red Auerbach, Celtics president, said on ABC-TV`s ``Nightline.``

At 22, the ``kid`` already had a $1 million endorsement contract with Reebok athletic shoes in the bag, and millions more if he played his cards right. Unfortunately, he did not.

Less than a couple of days after being drafted by the Celtics, when he must have been feeling his most omnipotent and invulnerable, he took a one-way ride on the white pony. Lady. Snow. Blow. Toot. Nose candy. The big winner turned out to be one more loser. All because of a little cocaine.

``Coke,`` Richard Pryor once said, ``is just God`s way of telling you you`re making too much money.``

It numbs the senses and your common sense.

Drug users ought to be called ``losers.`` That`s what they really are.

That`s why people who normally could care less about basketball suddenly find themselves caring about Lenny Bias, Maryland`s winner-turned-loser . He was not a poor, struggling ghetto kid caught up in The Life that sucks kids into drug use like mythical Sirens drawing ancient ships to crash on the rocks. He was caught up in a different kind of life, that of the modern athlete.

Somewhere along the line, our athletic world became known less for Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy than for Michael Ray Richardson, John Lucas, John Drew, Quintin Dailey or Walter Davis the drug users. All were NBA players who, like too many other druggies in other sports, made headlines for drug use.

Basketball is a fast game with its own special style and grace. It calls for fast reflexes, quick decisions and an extra set of eyes in the back of your head, a special perception a player once described to writer John McPhee as ``a sense of where you are.``

According to news reports, Lenny the slam dunker should have had a better sense of where he was. His friends say he was a born-again Christian who used to warn his little brother to stay away from drugs. You have to wonder why this role model for others decided to ignore his own warnings.

He gambled and he lost. Coke kills capriciously, the coroner said. You never know if you can take a little or a lot until it is too late.

And even in nonfatal doses, it is sinister, experts say. It fires up the pleasure centers of the brain and burns them out. No matter how hard you try, you can never get the euphoria of that first high again. Every time you come down, you will feel worse than you did before you went up, because your brain has just that much less of its natural ability to provide any sense of pleasure. And, as with other ``hard`` drugs, you constantly need heavier doses to get high at all.

His university is retiring Bias` jersey, a distinction normally reserved for athletes who meet their ends by more honorable means.

There have been all kinds of eulogies and poetic quotes to try to make some sense of it all. But I can`t help but think of one I saw on somebody`s T- shirt: